


Metamorphosis

by Delcat



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delcat/pseuds/Delcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would your temptation be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metamorphosis

It was a small apartment, affordable, and comfortable enough most days.  Tonight, though, with the air conditioning out again and no wind to shift the thick summer air, it was rough.  Especially rough like this.  He’d overdone it again, his chest aching.  Lying on his back on the couch made it easier, but it was still hard to breathe.  
  
"Say pal."  
  
Radio static from…somewhere.  Had he left his alarm on?  
  
"Hey.  Listen up."  
  
The young man shook himself awake and pushed himself up on one arm, wincing as his flesh peeled away from the cheap vinyl.  Too hot, way too hot.  
  
"Need your beauty sleep?  I understand."  
  
The question was barbed, and it was…it was definitely directed at him.  Infomercial hosts didn’t berate their guests.  
  
He looked around, picked up his clock radio.  It was buzzing unpleasantly, not audibly but in low vibrations in his hand.  
  
"Good.  You’re not as dumb as you look."  
  
Christ, he was losing it.  It was too damn’ hot, was the problem.  God, if this was water on the lungs again…  
  
As if reading the thought, the radio jumped like a dying fish, almost crashing to the floor.  
  
"I’m _perfectly_ real, friend!  Unlike some of us.”  
  
He almost asked it out loud, realized that would be insane, realized just as much that whatever was going on, thought was enough.  So…what the hell did that mean?  
  
"Means I know your little secret, kid."  
  
He stiffened, looked at the radio display.  It betrayed nothing, blinking the early hour of the morning guilelessly.  
  
"Oh, c’mon, you should be used to that.  Everyone else does.  Unless they don’t realize you even have a secret.  Which is worse, do you think?"  
  
It was a question he’d asked himself enough times.  
  
"Don’t worry, pal.  I’m on your side.  I can get you what you need."  
  
He remained silent, voice and thought, wiping sweat from the nape of his neck.  
  
"I can make it all real.  No more sympathetic looks.  No more black sheep at the family reunions.  No more ‘You’ll get over it’.  No more ‘You’re gonna burn’ notes slipped under your door.  No more getting burned, either."  
  
The radio shook in his grip.  The cherry bomb had been…it had just been bad timing, he knew whatever kids put it in his mailbox hadn’t mean to actually _hurt_ him.  If anything, it was good enough timing that he hadn’t lost his fingers, just had his hands wrapped and been out of work for a week.  It had just been a joke.  A bad joke.  
  
"No more having to forgive."  
  
He closed his eyes.  
  
"No more turning the other cheek.  No more bandages.  No more pretend.  You can breathe easy.  All you have to do is play a game with me."  
  
He exhaled heavily, the breath turned into a soft wheeze.  
  
"I’ll make you a man.  Whaddya say, pal?"  
  
He raised the radio to his lips, made sure the words were absolutely clear.  
  
"Fuck you."  
  
It shattered when it hit the wall, shards of plastic and batteries flying into far corners of the room.  
  
The young man laid back, massaged his chest.  The landlord would pitch a fit about the dent in the drywall, and he’d be late to work the next morning, but it didn’t seem to matter.  
  
A soft breeze rustled the curtains, and he slept.

   
  
Deep below another world, Maxwell scowled as the phonograph whined feedback, then slowly went back to the song it was playing, the song it always played.  However, he couldn’t quite keep a grin off his face.  
  
"Damn’ shame."  
  
He lit a cigar.  
  
"That boy had moxie."

**Author's Note:**

> This is not me. I don’t have it anywhere near this bad. I just have thoughts late at night. I also I don’t have air conditioning at all, so it washes.
> 
> For more on the Metamorphosis as it applies to vintage magic, please visit your local library. Or Wiki it, don't pay my bills, fine.


End file.
